>This issue is (like all historical questions) very much dependent on which
>precise historical period one asks about, which countries, and which
>Christians.

I am trying to collect both American and British/Scottish books from the
period written on science and the Bible. Both in the US and UK, there was
as wide a variety of opinion then as today. Indeed, most of today's
positions were initiated during this period. One position which is
extremely rare today but which was widespread in the 1820s-40s is the belief
in an old-earth AND global flood. Once the diluvuim (glacial till) was
understood to have been generated by continental glaciers rather than the
flood, that position had no legs.

There was an American, Rendell who totally spiritualized Genesis--absolutely
NO historical content whatsoever--which of course solved the science Bible
problem, but did so rather trivially.